We're looking for solutions of problems that don't exist.

Why does Bill think that leehelm is a "dragon" ? Moreso than weatherhelm ?

Does any of you realize why a boat is setup for weatherhelm upwind ? It appears that the want for weatherhelm has become a dogma that must be satisfied at all costs.

-1- You have weatherhelm on big boats because that is the safety zone for them and because tacking becomes difficult without it.

-2- On smaller boats you have it in order to get some positive return on an item that otherwise only introduces drag.

On downwind the first point is useless; the safety zone here is to lee. How about weatherhelm when singlehanded doucing the spi ? You rather want the boat to track downwind then weathervane up. BLa bla bla Balanced rudders, bla bla bla. IT IS STILL WEATHERHELM ! Put your rudders sligthly of centre and you're gone.

Point 2 is totally mute on downwind legs. Good crews pull up their boards because alot of lateal resistance is really not needed on downwind legs. They leave a smaller area in place to keep some minimal sensitivity to steering. This moves CLR forward as well as on all boats the CLR component of the hull alone is forward of the daggerboard.

I can honestly say that I have never met a leehelm dragon while sailing a cat that was designed to sail with a spinnaker. And to complete it ; I never saw that dragon after adding a spi on other boats except the Dart 18 and a handfull exceptions as well.

I did experience the downsides of shared lift on the 49-er skiff and the downsides of long spi poles.

Excessive mast rake due to spinnaker then ? Nop, haven't seen it or even needed it on my own boats. Mast rake on Hobie 16 or even Taipan 4.9 then ? That is for other reasons and we can't really say that it is holding these boats back CAN WE, Bill ?

Spi pole length at 50 % of hoist height spi to prevent diving ? Great ! F16 runs poles of 3.5/7.5 = 47 %. What a difference those 50%-47% = 3 % makes ! That just doesn't fly with me. So I see really no need to put a longer pole on my F16.

What else was introduced to make the ARC-17 appear superior to all other designs ? Ohh yeah shared lift.

Massive tiller loads when the rudder kick up or when leaving the beach with the rudders trailing (unbalanced rudders !)

In my surf ? No, thank you !

Not using shared lift on other boats makes them slow or slower ? Hum, ARC-17 with spi = rating 70.2 ; Taipan 4.9 WITHOUT spi = 68.1 and to show that there are no ill feelings between us we'll just forget about those 26 % in more (main+jib) sailarea that Bill has put on the ARC-17.

I say that sums it up quite nicely. Thank God Bill uses shared lift on the ARC-17 or else it would be sailing of a rating of 75 and be looking over its shoulder for the fastest Hobie 16's I suspect.

A while back Bill also chastized all other designers for designing overweight boats and you'd expressed F16's were nothing special at 107 kg including all sailing gear !

Well, didn't he prove us all wrong by making the ARC-17 = 126 kg EXCLUDING the weight of the sails (min 8 kg) and spi package (min 5 kg). This puts you on a level with the 1976 Dart 18 design which is of equal length.

To daggerboard wells then : one for upwind sailing and one for downwind sailing ?

I will garantee you that you'll be at the leeward mark behind all boats that use only one daggerboard well.

How much time does it take to move the two boards from one well to another ? 10 seconds ? That is quite fast.

10 seconds that you could already be travelling at full speed under spinnaker = 50 - 100 meters less distance travelled ?

I can assure you that you will never be able to compensate for this loss even if the new position of the boards would make your craft more effecient.

As it is right now in the F18 a 3 second delay in setting the spi at the A-mark is enough to loose you 1 to 5 places in the field.

A lot of crews don't even readjust the jib sheet and outhaul of the main in tight racing as that takes to much time in which they can easily loose a tactical beneficial position. Most of the time they do that later in the leg during a lull or when the skipper has one hand free. Getting the spi up quickly is the most important thing. Repositioning the boards is not what you want to do if that delays the setting of the spi. That is even IF it would be necessary

BECAUSE

The balancing of the rudders that Bills shared lift needs to get rid of the weatherhelm feel on the upwind legs will ALSO remove the feel of the leehelm on downwind legs that other boats MAY have.

So the whole discussion comes down on wether having leehelm on downwind legs (not the feel of it as that can be taken away by balanced rudders) is a SIGNIFICANTLY bad thing performance wise ? If leehelm is assumed to be present, that is.

This does not appear to be the case. And untill a newly designed shared lift ARC F18 starts beating all other F18's on the course I think we'll be at a loss to proof that it does significantly influence performance in a bad manner.

Wouter